Tenleytown Art All Night celebrated another weekend of arts programming both downtown and on campus in collaboration with the D.C.-wide Art All Night festivities on Sept. 12-13.
Visitors viewed new pieces in the Katzen Rotunda courtesy of Ward Circle Faction: Group 93 and visited Katzen’s latest exhibitions: Women Artists of the DMV: A Survey Exhibition; From Ancestral Traces to Contemporary Visions – The Art of Méné; Jan Svoboda & Jaroslav Beneš: Lenticular Poetry; Orna Ben-Ami: Displacement and Memory; From Painting to Print: The Poppies, Mimosas, and Lantern Flowers of Donald Sultan; and Fabricated Boundaries: Filipina American Textile & Fiber Artists.
“[The museum’s] been a lot more popular than we expected,” Julia Lane said, a senior in the College of Arts and Sciences and a staff member at the American University Museum.“Today we’ve had more people than we get on a regular day. We’re excited about it.”
Lane described a gallery talk with Orna Ben-Ami, artist for the Displacement and Memory exhibit on the second floor, “It was really well attended.”
On the way to visit the museum, attendees of Tenleytown Art All Night were greeted in Katzen by John Oberg, a volunteer and colleague of late artist and AU professor Luciano Penay. Oberg, who is well-versed in the history of Ward Circle Faction: Group 93, provided visitors with context and a personal history of the artist group featured on the Katzen Rotunda walls.
In an interview with The Eagle, Oberg explained Group 93’s 35-year history in Ward Circle. Made up of AU professors, artists from the Ward Circle community, curators and even Myrtle Katzen herself, it predates the Katzen Arts Center’s building where the event was held.
Luciano Panay, Joan Birnbaum and Myrtle Katzen are the three main artists featured in the Katzen Rotunda exhibit, Katzen’s creations serving as an artifact of her involvement with Group 93 and her love of the arts. “And, of course, the building is a donation from her, so it’s very appropriate that this work is hung in the Katzen Rotunda,” Oberg said.
He went on to discuss his connection to Penay, who was a professor at American University for many years, describing him as a master of the delicate art of hanging — a term for choosing how and where art pieces should be placed in a gallery — and the harmony that comes from pieces expertly placed beside each other.
“In a hang, each piece must reflect well on those next to it, to bring out the best in those next to it,” Oberg said. “When I used to help Mr. Penay ‘hang’ his shows, it would take two days or so to get it right. He’d often come in here in the middle of the night and change things around.”
Oberg’s knowledge gave Art All Night visitors a new appreciation for both the care and expertise that went into the exhibit. The thoughtfulness of the event was also reflected in the artists featured.
“There’s many professors from AU represented here,” Oberg said. “Michael Graham has many wonderful drawings down there. Marge Hirano is right over there, those geometrics. They were on the faculty here for many years. It’s very much an AU show.”
The Ward Circle Faction: Group 93 exhibit will be running in the Katzen Rotunda until Oct. 7.
The AU Museum’s next event will be a free gallery talk on Saturday, Oct. 25, from 2 to 3 p.m. for the Fabricated Boundaries: Filipina American Textile & Fiber Artists exhibition. Reservations are required.
This article was edited by Sydney Hemmer, Jessica Ackerman. Copy editing done by Sabine Kanter-Huchting and Ariana Kavoossi.
